What happens when you starve yourself to lose weight?

Answer 1

• On a starvation diet, the body slows down its metabolism to conserve energy. This means the longer you go on not eating/eating too little ,the slower your weight loss will be. Without sufficient glucose (from food) for your brain's functioning, you will experience mental fatigue, inability to concentrate ,irritability, headaches, confusion. Because your muscles won't get enough fuel to work on, you'll feel faint, unstable and weak. To lose weight you need to keep your energy up by keeping muscles strong and giving it fuel (food!) and eat small frequent meals but make healthy choice. If you starve yourself to lose weight, you will find rapid weight loss. You'll lose the weight right off, and you'll look great. Your body is smart. It knows that you starved it, so as soon as you start eating again, it stores anything and everything it can from the food you are eating, just in case you starve yourself again so that it has something to live off of. When your body is storing all of these things, you'll find yourself gaining weight again rapidly, sometimes more than you initially lost. There's no way to stop this either unless you stop eating again, but then the next time you eat your body will again store anything it can take from the food you're eating. Starving yourself to lose weight ends up being harmful. Starvation is just that, starving, and your making your body go through hell to keep yourself alive. and you might want to look up metabolic acidosis. The smart way to lose weight and keep it off is not easy, but will give you the results you seek. A well-balanced diet with all the correct serving sizes and a moderate exercise regiment are what is needed to be healthy and have a body that is lean. Please don't take the easy way out and end up harming yourself.

• When you deprive your body of sustenance it uses your fat and muscle for nutrients. If you are working every muscle group, your body will consume the excess fat in your body. If you are not exercising every major muscle group, your body will use a combination of fat and muscle to keep going. You will feel extremely tired and slow. If prolonged starvation occurs, the weight loss will quickly begin to taper as your metabolism adjusts to not getting enough food. In the end, starving yourself could have serious consequences for your body. Healthy and fast weight loss can be achieved by consuming no less than 1000 calories a day and high intensity cardio for an hour five/six days a week.

Answer 2

Your body goes into crisis mode Your health is seriously compromised

You may form a habit of using this ill-advised weight-loss method

Doctors and dieticians recommend losing weight gradually, allowing a whole month for every 4 to 8 pounds you want to lose. Do not starve yourself, or skip meals, or try throwing up.
Here's a program for the period in which you want to lose weight:
Try to get plenty of moderate aerobic exercise (intense exercise may damage your joints). It isn't essential to join a gym; you can do sit-ups, pushups, dumbbell-lifting, jumping-jacks, and many other basic exercises at home. Walk as much as possible. Bicycling and swimming are good too. Even for people who are not trying to lose weight, being active helps your digestion, your circulation, and other body processes.

Even more important than exercise, is avoiding junk foods and sweetened drinks such as soda. Try to avoid refined flour and pasta, processed foods, fried foods, and fatty cuts of meat. Preferably consume no added sugar, and as little added salt as possible.

Our great-grandparents didn't have the epidemic of obesity we see today, because they had a less-sedentary lifestyle, a much more natural diet, and they ate reasonably-sized portions.

Eat 3 not-large-portioned meals per day; do not skip breakfast; and avoid sugary snacks. If you want a snack, try (for example) an apple or a handful of unsalted nuts.

Limit your calories (best to consult a doctor or nutritionist concerning the amount), and weigh yourself at the same time each day, 2-3 times per week. If you see your weight diminishing at a safe, reasonable rate (1-2 pounds/week), keep it up.

Once you've reached your goal, increase your calorie intake somewhat, so that you can maintain your present weight. And you can then have small amounts of sweetened foods or junk food on occasion (if at all), along with your regular healthy foods. But keep checking your weight 2-3 times/week.

Avoid crash-diets, fad diets, diet pills, etc. These may be harmful, and need not be considered by people who have adopted an otherwise healthy diet.

More guidelines:
Don't concentrate on specific foods so much as on a balanced, healthy diet plus exercise.

Healthy nutrition means eating what your body needs, while ingesting as few harmful things as possible. It has also been described as getting enough of each of the major food categories, in healthy forms (grains, fruits, vegetables, protein, dairy, etc.; plus plenty of water).

In general, an example of a healthy starting point could be a menu of whole-grain foods and bread, a good amount of vegetables, legumes, some fruits and nuts, fish, lean meats in not-large amounts, and some dairy. However, this may need adjusting according to one's lifestyle, age, health, weight and other factors at the outset; and also later, as one sees what works for him/her in particular.

Also...whenever you feel queasy, nauseous, constipated or otherwise not completely well, try to remember what you've eaten over the last several hours or the last day. This is one factor in adjusting one's food habits.

See also:

Could you describe a balanced diet?

What features would a good weight-loss program have?

Some healthy snacks

Is it possible to slim down in just one area of the body?